1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a straddle-type vehicle, and particularly to a straddle-type off-road vehicle frequently requiring maintenance and cleaning of the upper portion of an engine and its peripheral parts.
2. Description of Related Art
Straddle-type vehicles optimized for off-road traveling or so-called straddle-type off-road vehicles have recently used electronically controlled fuel injection devices (for example, see pp. 38-39 and FIG. 19 of JP-T-2002-513713, which is a published Japanese translation of a PCT application).
In a straddle-type off-road vehicle using such a fuel injection device, a fuel pump that supplies fuel to the fuel injection device is mounted in a fuel tank disposed above the engine. In order to prevent the fuel pump from being damaged, for example, when the straddle-type off-road vehicle rolls over, the fuel pump is mounted at the center of the bottom of the fuel tank.
A fuel hose that feeds pressurized fuel discharged out of the fuel pump to the fuel injection device (an injector) and a wiring coupler that bundles wiring lines including a power supply line, are connected to the fuel pump. A fuel hose connector capable of engaging and disengaging the fuel hose is provided at some point along the fuel hose.
In the straddle-type off-road vehicle described above, maintenance or cleaning of the upper portion of the engine and its peripheral parts requires removal of the fuel tank disposed above the engine. Removal of the fuel tank to permit such cleaning is more often necessary in an off-road vehicle than in a general-purpose straddle-type vehicle that is not used for off-road traveling.
To remove the fuel tank, it is necessary to unlock the fuel hose connector provided at some point along the fuel hose and disengage the wiring coupler, both of which are connected to the fuel pump mounted at the center of the bottom of the fuel tank. It is quite cumbersome to unlock the fuel hose connector and disengage the wiring coupler while supporting the fuel tank.